Disinfection Techniques for Dental Impressions:A Review Article

Statement of Problem: Dental impressions are infected with various types of micro-organisms e.g. Hepatitis B, C, HIV, Mycobacterium, Herpes simplex, Ebola etc. In order to prevent their spread through dental impression it is important to sterilize the impression just after removal from patient’s mouth. Numerous method to disinfect impressions have been described in literature having their own advantages, disadvantages and effects on impression material. To enhance the knowledge of a dental health care workers about impression disinfection, a structured literature review of the current disinfection techniques has been carried out.

Material and Method: One electronic database (PubMed) was searched through in November 2019. The term “dental impression disinfection” was chosen. The titles and abstracts were screened and the studies which performed “disinfection techniques in dentistry” were selected.

Conclusions: Cross infection control is very important aspect of clinician and patient safety. It is the responsibility of the dentist to make appropriate choice of disinfection method for different impression materials.